Salt as sacramental

Salt as sacramental

I'm trying to get the Wikipedia article on the use of salt in the church straightened out, and I need some help here because we have a Catholic advice book
on, um, personal purity saying that blessed salt can be strewn about the house as a protection against evil influences. I don't have access to the text of
the book so I can't see where it gets this idea from. Looking at the 1962/64 Rituale I see use of salt in baptism,
use of salt in making holy water, use of salt in consecration of an altar, and a special sacramental form of blessing salt for consumption by animals. I also
see in the NO rite that the use of salt in holy water has become optional. This book is apparently claiming that some of the salt put to the latter use may be
reserved and given to parishioners for use as above. There's also a fugitive mention in the Catholic Encyclopedia
article, but I cannot turn "Gregorian Sacramentary (P.L., LXXVIII, 231)" into text that I can look up, much less read the (I presume) Latin of.

Does anyone have a clue about this? I especially would need citations that testify to the current legitimacy of the
practice (the CE after all dating from 1913).

As to current (N.O.) use of blessed salt, in the home, while it was never banned, it has like many things dropped off. Some cultures where it may have had more
use in the past, ie. Hispanic and Italian families have kept it, at least in first and second generation families in the US and UK. However it is usually among
the people who have access to the ethnic clergy, as many Anglo/Irish have less familiarity with it. Just like the chalk at Epiphany...

The order of the administration of Baptism in the old Sarum Manuale (Ritual) was almost identical in words and ceremonies with that now in use among us. (For
the differences see SARUM.) The principal changes in 1549 were the omission of the blessing of the font, of the giving of the
blessed salt, and of the first anointing. New prayers were also introduced, but the general character of the old service was preserved,
including the exorcisms, the giving of the white garment, and the second anointing. All of these met with Bucer's disapproval, and were accordingly
removed in 1552, and have never been restored. The present rite is exactly the same as that of 1552, with few verbal alterations.

An old Roman Catholic baptismal rite involved the offering of blessed salt to the baptismal candidate; this was
probably based on the pagan Roman custom of placing a few grains of salt on the lips of an infant, eight days after its birth, to chase away the demons.
Salt, because of its preservative quality, represented purity and incorruptibility.

I find the pagan origin of this interesting. Mangoe, I don't know if this will help but I Googled "use of salt in religion" and got this link.
Hope it helps. You could try a search with the same pharse and see what you get.

There are in fact three references to the ritual usage of salt in the 1962/64 Rituale Romanum, not counting exorcism
(which the only copy I'm looking at does not print); they are: in baptism, in the making of holy water, and in the consecration of an altar. There is a
fourth rite for blessing of salt given to beasts. All of that is therefore easy to document. The problem part is that there seems to be a fifth rite, a
sacramental which (from what I can tell) uses part of the rite for making holy water, and that there is some sort of beliefs about strewing that salt for
protection. The issue I'm having is that documenting this last is being very difficult because most of the sites I'm finding are, well, a little
cracked. I also haven't been able to determine whether the Book of Blessings has such a rite; so far it appears
not, and the NO rite for holy water makes the addition of salt optional.

I've seen several references to this article; if someone
could take a look at it and express some opinion as to the authority and reliability of it, I would appreciate it.

There's also the biblical (but not sacramental) practice of salting the earth
as a punishment for rebellion as in Judges 9:45:

IIRC, the Romans also salted the Carthaginian fields to render them unfit for agriculture. Part of their ethnic cleansing of the enemy which was SOP back
then, and unfortunately, remains SOP today in certain areas of the world.

Sorry Mangoe, but I don't know much about this (salt in religion) other than perhaps the old use in the baptismal rite as part of an exorcism ritual. If
you find what you are looking for, please satisfy our collective curiosity.

Thanks,

Jim C.
. . . Happy belated Thanksgiving!

"non omnis moriar" . . . Horace, Odes

"Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati" . . . Red Green Show

"They see well that all who speak are nothing, for they shall fadeaway with the sound of their words, but the Lord endures forever.". . . Thomas a Kempis, THE IMITATION OF CHRIST, Book 4, Chapter 14, No. 4

Well, it certainly would provide a good use for all that leftover blessed salt. (If you keep the older type of Roman rite, you are required to bless new holy
water each Sunday. In my experience, the salt which is blessed each Sunday to be added into the water, builds up, unless you bless only a few grains and put
ALL the blessed salt into the water (which for some reason or another I've never seen done).) Also, salt is used in the confection of St. Gregory water
used for holy unction and consecrating various objects. The Greater Blessing of Waters in the Roman rite has the use of salt, with the epistle reading from St.
Paul mentioning salt.

Wikipedia, not always a reliable source, has some interesting info:

Salt also had a significant place in Hebrew worship. Salt was included in the Levitical offerings, since salt was emblematic of permanence or loyalty. In
Leviticus 2:13, God [spoiler]commanded that "And every offering of your grain offering you shall season with salt; you shall not allow the salt of the
covenant of your God to be lacking from your grain offering. With all your offerings you shall offer salt." Salt was cast on the burnt offering (Ezekiel
43:24) and was part of the incense (Exodus 30:35). Part of the temple offering included salt (Ezra 6:9).

Salt was also used to ratify covenants. In Numbers 18:19, God promises to provide, through the offerings of His people, for His priests forever: "All the
heave offerings of the holy things, which the children of Israel offer to the LORD, I have given to you and your sons and daughters with you as an ordinance
forever; it is a covenant of salt forever before the LORD with you and your descendants with you." Salt cannot be burned or destroyed. Perhaps because of
salt's durability, God used it as a metaphor to indicate that as salt keeps its flavor, so the Lord's covenant with the priesthood was durable. More
likely, however, is that the "covenant of salt" (or, in some versions, "inviolable covenant") refers to a practice that rendered contracts
irrevocable during the time period in which the Bible was written. In biblical times, men carried pouches of salt on their belts. When a pact, promise, or
contract was made, the men from each of the participating parties would intermingle the salt from their own pouches with the salt from the pouches of the other
party. This reminded the men that they could not retrieve their own salt from the other pouch, symbolizing the fact that they could not go back on their
word.[citation needed]

Another reference to the use of salt to ratify a covenant occurs at 2 Chronicles 13:5. At the beginning of this chapter, Abijah, King of Judah and rightful
heir to David's throne, is at war with King Jeroboam, who has taken control of Israel. Before Jeroboam's destruction, Abijah speaks of the Davidic
Covenant: "Hear me, Jeroboam and all Israel: Should you not know that the LORD God of Israel gave the dominion over Israel to David forever, to him and
his sons, by a covenant of salt?" Here, salt refers to God's irrevocable pledge and intended loyalty in fulfilling the Davidic covenant and God's
desire for the loyalty of David's lineage to Him if the people are to enjoy the blessings of the covenant. The preservative quality of salt represents the
fidelity or loyalty intended in keeping the covenant.

Newborn babies (because of what the Lord commanded) were rubbed with salt to promote good health. A reference to this practice is in Ezekiel 16:4: "As for
your nativity, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed in water to cleanse you; you were not rubbed with salt nor wrapped in
swaddling cloths."

So the Hebrews, as well as the pagans, once used salt on children. Thanks, Mangoe, for starting this thread.

Since the thread was a question about the Pauline Rites, and how blessed salt is used in them, the answers (where there has been a change) from the older rites
are moot.

I however having not used the new rites, am accustomed to keeping a stock of excorcised and blessed salt on hand. Religious Goods dealser in days gone by used
to sell custodials for the salt, my own having a little slit on the lid that when lined up correctly allowed for the pouring of salt from the container. On
Sundays, and whenever the Holy Water needed replenishing, one would omit the exorcism and blessing of the salt if they had a ready supply of it, and commence
with the exorcism of the water. Once down to a limited supply of blessed salt, it could be replenished and blessed anew.

Just as one keeps a supply of Holy Oils at the ready, most Baptistries have a supply of blessed salt, which keeps for multiple baptisms, usually for the entire
year. It was rare to see salt exorcised and blessed each time it was needed, as most parishes kept a supply on hand in the sacristy.